(no subject)

[proximoception]

We take such pains to control what we realize.

Our tendency is to simplify the ideas of others into brief phrases, then connect each idea, where we find no immediate reason to agree with it, to some recognizable fault or inadequacy in its holder. This destroys rival conceptualizations at both root and bud. It is a very useful filter and always at least partly accurate: every formulation is imperfect due to limitations of the formulator. But, since life teaches us so few things directly, applied overscrupulously this practice walls us off from almost everything there is to know--such as most of the few things learned by each of the billions of other human beings.

So we learn to suspend disagreement now and then. With our enemies, say, or at random, on Whatifyou'reright days. WhatifI'mwrong is of surprisingly limited value, I think because it connects up to our self-esteem, therefore is subject to our astonishingly subtle and powerful self-esteem defenses. I might be wrong elides to Oh no I'm wrong, I must be bad, waaah! Which we don't ever mean: we deliberately overstate a case against us or against that which is of crucial importance to our sense of self (i.e. nearly everything we feel like arguing about) so that the proposition in question no longer makes sense, therefore cannot be meant, need not be thoughtfully answered. The effort at self-critique is answered by a burst of emotion which, unlike our sense of the facts, will run its course and disappear. Humble-me is a straw man we set up to avoid truly arguing with ourself. Rather, a straw man who immediately agrees with our self-criticism, but in impossibly distorted terms, thus killing the critical exchange through a drama of parody. This works with others, too, no? Insincere agreement is resorted to to end a heated discussion--usually vague half-agreement so we don't have to admit to ourselves that we're trying to lie the issue away. Naturally we don't let ourselves realize when we aren't letting ourselves realize something.

So deliberate self-effacement or critique generally won't work, but half-forgetting ourselves in sympathetic immersion in the other person's words and thoughts often can. This is one reason why style is important: the easier you make it for someone else to understand you and yours more exactly, the better off you'll both be.

This is one reason literature is important.

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Wow. You're two for two today if you were shooting for thought-provoking. I've always liked how straw man and flame war come up in online disagreements. I picture the poor Scarecrow and the viciously, Wickedly funny Witch asking him to play ball. I don't think the flammability of the straw man is where the phrase came from (could be wrong) and now I'm rambling, but... yes, this is one reason literature is important.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I always pictured it as a Wicker Man or political effigy kind of thing, hence very flammable?

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Yes, flammable, but I think more bayonet-able originally. Burn. Burn.

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

Yep. I think about this quite a bit. Whenever I get into arguments or near arguments, or, AFTER these occasions, I think about why I'm mad, and I ask myself how closely what I'm responding to matches what was meant, and usually I've got nothing, or next to nothing.

The most I usually conclude - well, I'm thinking of a particular recent instance where I got into an argument with a classmate who felt, strongly, that "there are no non-violent drug offenders! Their families cover for them! I've watched Intervention!" and thus that these drug offenders should all be incarcerated. I concluded that he had very little idea of what the prison system was actually like, and has some thing he's reacting to about Justice. I don't know what this thing is or why he has it.

The stuff we said on either side about drug offenders and offenses was basically shadowplay.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Well, sometimes people are too wrong for you to bother finding out why, and when they're doing it in public it might be good for someone to take them down? I would have been furious at him myself, though whether aloud or silently would depend on mood and blood sugar level.

It may feel intolerant in hindsight, but I think you were drawing a necessary line in the sand. Certain kinds of ignorance shouldn't fly in the public sphere and he needs to know that. Of course, many millions would say that about my AIDS opinions, and maybe many other ones. And here in the south my God ones. *South-sigh*.

[andalus.livejournal.com]

I've realized that the only thing there really is to believe in is the fact that human beings can make arbitrations without knowing all the facts, making that leap past the last fraction of achillies-and-tortoise second-guessing, and come up with things that they have to stand by. essentially the only course of action when you live all your days on a slippery slope. but unless you realize it, your own subjective hand in your own objective reasoning, well, you might as well be wrong.

which is why I react badly to drawing-the-line people. who says you can draw the line. Obviously a line has to be drawn but why you. What is she missing out on that her opponent understood about justice?

Speaking of being annoyed, coworkers are the worst part of any job. I could stand anything if it weren't for coworkers. I want to plug my ears or argue down every single word being said, one or the other, no in between. Slightly-west-of-the-east-sigh.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

She probably wasn't missing out on anything but the specific assumptions and experiences the person argued with had that led to his ignorant-ass, indefensible opinion. Which are doubtless interesting experiences and assumptions, to the extent they can be accessed, but a) it sounds like he was saying something too stupid to people of impressionable age for the mysteries of his personality to be an interesting field of study, and b) he probably couldn't have expressed them particularly well. Style again, you need the style. Your coworkers do not have the style.

The realization of subjectivity may be overrated. There's a lot we can take care of without it--the thing is, virtually everything we have not yet taken care of, e.g. handling drug addicts in a way that doesn't fuck up them very much or us very much, would benefit from some realized subjectivity.

Even you draw certain lines, btw. But yelling or coaxing down public idiocy seems to be an unavoidable part of the teaching job, so far. Any prejudice projected by a given speaker is going to be waking up dormant half-prejudices in six people nearby. That's your chance to topically apply some facts or deft ridicule.

[andalus.livejournal.com]

What is this Style stuff you keep talking about. Palatability, accessibility? There's no accounting for taste, i may not no art but I no what i liek? If you're saying certain things are objectively beneficial, then are they subjectively applicable to the minds of people around them? what does a dense book of philosophy not got that a poem has. though you can say each could be written with style but what is Style, and how can it be different for everyone and still be a Thing?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

The ability to say what's on your mind the way it's on your mind. Which usually means serving up a portion of you along with it--more as a heuristic than because these things could not be translated into common language. We only have so much time. It's usually easier to just learn someone else's language, if it's a variety of English, than to bother rendering what comes easiest to their tongue into what comes easiest to your ears. Only where it's worth it, which is why a lot of us go around chattering names all day.

A little poem, over a dense book of philosophy, has the ability to show you (comparatively quickly) what and how much can be put it a little poem, i.e. a concentrated thought or connected series of thoughts in words. Since at least some of us think in concentrated thoughts or series of thoughts in words, this is helpful. It's nice to get more accuracy, nuance, and delight into our thoughts, especially since thought and experience are difficult to distinguish.